The politics and identity of Irish-Argentines in the nineteenth and twentieth century with reference to Perón, the Dirty War and the fall of the generals

Author:

Speight, Patrick

Awarding Body:

Queen's University Belfast

Current Institution:

Queen's University Belfast

Date of Award:

2017

Availability of Full Text:

Full text unavailable from EThOS. Thesis embargoed until 01 Jun 2022

Abstract:

This thesis focuses on how the Irish-Argentine community responded to the rise of Juan Domingo Peron in 1946 and the last military dictatorship, 1976-83. To contextualise the assessment I look at the process of identity formation and analyse the role the Southern Cross, the newspaper that chronicles the community from its foundation in 1875 to the present day, and the Irish-Argentine clergy played in that process. The early chapters trace the process of chain migration from Westmeath, Longford and Wexford. The absence of the historic antagonism between Catholicism and Protestantism helps explain why Irish settlers accepted being designated ingleses with equanimity. Tensions developed within the Irish-Argentine community when the Southern Cross came under the influence of Irish nationalist William Bulfin during the first decade of the last century. His efforts to Gaelicise the community found little traction and by the 1930s the Southern Cross was promoting the preservation of the English language as an identity marker for the Irish-Argentine community. In relation to politics, the thesis analyses the Irish-Argentine community’s response to the labour movement at the turn of the last century, the Easter Rising, the First and Second World Wars and the rise of Fascism. The historical analyses that precedes the period from Peron’s election in 1946 through to the rise and fall of the Generals in 1983 permits a greater understanding of why many in the Irish-Argentine community did not protest against the egregious human rights abuses that took place during the Dirty War. Within the Irish-Argentine community the site of conflict during the dictatorship is between two models of church, one traditional and hierarchical, the other based on liberation theology and the Church of the poor. The massacre of three Pallottine priests, two of them Irish-Argentine, and two seminarians in July 1976 divided the community.